Author

Stephen Cooper

Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. Follow him on Twitter @SteveCooperEsq

“Just Mercy” and Justice do not exist in Alabama

The chance of there being “just mercy” for Nathaniel Woods—facing lethal injection on March 5 for the killing of three Birmingham police officers—is as good as the chance Alabama will ever reform its dismal, no-justice-to-be-found-anywhere legal system; it ain’t gonna happen. A Hollywood movie and best-selling book about a legendary lawyer getting an innocent man … Continued

Stephen Cooper

February 17, 2020

Opinion

Another death penalty horror: Stark disparities in media and activist attention

On November 12, intrepid abolitionist, Sister Helen Prejean, tweeted to her legions of followers: “What do Sen. Ted Cruz, Gigi Hadid, Kim Kardashian, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and me all have in common? We’re among a growing local and national movement asking Texas @GovAbbott to stop the scheduled Nov. 20 execution of #RodneyReed[.]” But for Twitter’s … Continued

Stephen Cooper

November 18, 2019

Opinion

Sick and Shrouded in Secrecy: Alabama’s Contract to Gas Humans to Death

For $25,000, Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall has contracted with Tennessee company “FDR Safety,” to assist Alabama in developing a barbaric new protocol – to execute its death row prisoners, whom Alabama treats like human guinea pigs– with nitrogen hypoxia. Paradoxically, FDR Safety specializes in workplace safety consulting, not manufacturing gas masks or gas chambers … Continued

Stephen Cooper

November 5, 2019

Opinion

Judge Marks and mass incarceration in the Middle District of Alabama

In 2016, together with former colleague Assistant Federal Public Defender Donnie W. Bethel, I wrote, “[p]eople of all persuasions, political parties, and philosophies have awakened to the terrible toll the crises of overcriminalization and mass incarceration have wrought on America.” Then, a year later, highlighting the “criminalization of addiction,” I wrote about Benny King – one of Bethel’s clients – … Continued

Stephen Cooper

September 5, 2019

Opinion

Abolishing the death penalty requires morality

In “How to Convince Americans to Abolish the Death Penalty,” Amherst College Professor Austin Sarat asserts “important lessons about how abolitionists can be successful around the country” can be learned from New Hampshire – which just last month became the twenty-first state to abolish capital punishment – including: “The moral argument doesn’t work.” Acknowledging New … Continued

Stephen Cooper

June 18, 2019

Opinion

My unforgettable college stabbings (Reacting to violence: A personal history)

Violence can and does occur anywhere at any time to anyone. While our current mass shooting epidemic has thrust this fact of being alive into our daily consciousness, I learned this lesson long ago. First, I learned when I was mugged and stabbed in the early ’90s during my freshman year at Tufts University, a … Continued

Stephen Cooper

April 17, 2019

Opinion

Why Twitter brings out my worst self (and perhaps yours)

As a full-time freelance writer – having transitioned from law practice at midlife, accursed with all the selfish, self-doubting sensibilities that kind of crisis entails – Twitter brings out my absolute worst self. With my insuppressible, hereditary, Type-A personality, coupled with my raging but not formally diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder, when I click on that … Continued

Stephen Cooper

March 6, 2019

Opinion

Keith Tharpe and the death penalty’s racist roots

Recently, the appalling spectacle of a black man condemned by a Georgia jury, a jury that included a racist bigot, reentered the American consciousness; if you haven’t heard about this travesty of justice (yet), or, if you’ve forgotten its details, all you need to know about the Keith Tharpe case is: a now-deceased juror who … Continued

Stephen Cooper

February 27, 2019

Opinion

Supreme Court screw-up sullies U.S. Constitution

Giving a speech at Georgetown University, late Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., said: “[T]he Constitution is a sublime oration on the dignity of man.” However, after the Supreme Court’s February 7 refusal to stay devout Muslim Domineque Ray’s execution – despite Ray’s unrebutted claim only Christian prisoners in Alabama are afforded a spiritual advisor during … Continued

Stephen Cooper

February 25, 2019

Opinion

Alabama executions: strictly a Christian affair

Over 60 years ago, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that “[t]he basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man. While the State has the power to punish, the Amendment stands to assure that this power be exercised within the limits of civilized standards.” Turning this concept – … Continued

Stephen Cooper

February 4, 2019